Under siege

The traditional and notional concept of war is often one of armed conflict and in the nature of its clearest exemplifications – invasions. The narrative of previous World Wars engaged in long drawn out trench warfare, naval armadas controlling sea lanes, with the combine of air superiority is the most comprehensible picture in the imagination of the common man. The idea of “boots on the ground” is however a limited view of the various spectrum wherein “war” may actually exist between States. Lest we forget by the very nature of human existence and defined countries, cooperation and conflict are two sides of the same coin.

Whichever approaches however are taken – in the realm of cooperation or conflict, these are further broken down to Statecraft as tools for negotiation, defense, survival. Meaning in formalized definitions, “Diplomacy or War”. Or both. Each of said methodologies are but means to a goal for every sovereign nation. At the center of and above the twin pillars is of course “politics” and the processes by which the levers of “power and authority” are duly exercised. It is no longer novel to deduce that if diplomacy is about projecting national interest in the international realm, the same may be said of “war”. Both are all about expressions of the politics and the political will of a people and their government. If war is politics by other means, diplomacy is war by other means, as well.

In the current diagnosis of our Republic, the sober conclusion would be that “there is an undeclared war” between Malaysia and the Philippines. China versus the Philippines. Malaysian advances are obvious in their continued occupation of Sabah; their patronship for the MILF, and the unconventional warfare of heavily investing in our economy, co-opting national leaders, and funding elections e.g. Maybank; close ties with former presidents. In the case of China, next to their “creeping invasion” in WPS, they are into our energy, expanding cell phone coverages, drug industry, smuggling, metal business, creating shell companies for favored “Tsinoys” to buy real estate, control retail, exporting illegal aliens, etc. We are under siege. (Erik Espina)